One of the processes in the milking operation is any treatment to be given to the cow's teats before or after application of the milking cups or cluster. Various spraying means have been used in the past for the purposes of pre-milking washing or spraying or post-milking spraying the teats and, perhaps, the udder. Some are as simple as a spray nozzle mounted into the platform floor or shed floor and able to be supplied via underfloor pipe work with a suitable washing or spraying fluid.
A more sophisticated device, used in New Zealand since about mid-1970 on a rotary platform had two spaced, in line with the cow's body, removable, screw-on spray nozzles, each provided with its own at a nozzle, in-line filter, the nozzles surmounting the ridge of a protruding, elongated, open-based, metal box of triangular cross section. The opposed sloping walls were designed to encourage the cow's legs apart to give good spray access to the teats and, perhaps, the udder and also to facilitate placing the cluster on the teats from between the hind legs with the milk hose exiting between the hind legs too.
The length of such a box-like arrangement was elongated in the direction of the length of the animal, which was substantially radial, and positioned under its udder with the nozzles fore and aft of the udder. Such a box was perimeter welded onto the steel floor and had closed ends, also sloping. Spraying fluid was supplied in a supply line under pressure from a fluid source external of the rotary turntable via a gland at the axis of rotation. Each bail was provided with a ball valve in a T branch off the fluid supply line most of which was accessible from the external pit area. The valve handles were spring-biased to the closed position. However, at a location just prior to the unloading position of the cow, the handle would come into contact with a stationary peg or similar to cause momentary opening of the ball valve thus enabling a post-milking disinfectant and perhaps emollient spray to be applied to all of the cow's teats and perhaps udder to constrain the incidence of mastitis and other ailments.
A development of that has been to mould the leg separator in plastics and such a device may be glued to the shed or platform floor, whether it be metal or concrete. Such a product is illustrated in New Zealand Registered Designs Nos. 411943, 411944, 411945 and 411946.
Mastitis checks of a milking herd are routinely required. While in its bail position and before an unloading position is reached, hand strippings of milk from each of the teats may be made with a view to examining them to see if there are any mastitis flecks, clumps, or blood, or if the milk is watery or abnormal in any way. Both sight and touch might be used. Many years ago black tiles used to be used on which to deposit the strippings for contrast and later that developed into a black plastic moulding of M cross-section (rather like two of the above-mentioned metal boxes joined longitudinally edge to edge but without nozzles) which also functioned as a leg separator. That device had no substantially horizontal surfaces when in use.
If a routine check is to be made on a milking herd then, perhaps immediately after the cups have been removed, following milking, while the platform is still on the move, single squirt hand strippings are viewed from a chosen quarter or quarters of each animal. At the same time, or as a separate check at that location, the state of each teat may be inspected, for example, to detect teat-end problems or to check redness (indicating a fault with the cluster or some other part of the milking apparatus or udder infection). These checks may be made in a dark environment as the general lighting, whether artificial or natural in a rotary milking shed mostly comes from overhead and little through any wall apertures or windows.
With modern electronic control of many of the operations to occur during a milking session, there has also been on some occasions provision of an individual eye-level bail screen which might for instance contain or display information about a particular animal as detected from the electronic ID collar or eartag which that animal might be wearing to alert the milking operator(s) to, perhaps, a health or production or other problem which that animal has, or may have, which will need to be checked or considered. The provision of such a screen is not operator-friendly as the eye-level information often goes unnoticed. The focus of the usual operator is to get the cow milked. As operator skill levels may be declining, in general, clear instructions, readily seen, are needed as to what actions they should be taking.
The improvements to be described hereafter were initially conceived with the aim of achieving many different objectives in a single base product—preferably a leg separator—able to be supplied to a customer in various optional forms, depending on the degree of sophistication required. However, the solutions achieved have advantages in other than such a single base product, as will be apparent from the following description.